Nick Saban isn’t ready to back down but neither are senior defensive back Maurice Smith and his family, as both parties are currently battling over Smith’s right to transfer to Georgia as a graduate student.
According to AL.com, Saban met with Smith and his parents last week to discuss their disagreement. After speaking for over an hour, Smith’s mother Samyra asked her family to step out of the room in order to speak with Saban alone.
A ‘verbal battle’ that lasted 20 minutes ensued, which led to Saban storming out of the room without conceding his point.
While Smith’s cause has taken on a national perspective, the senior defensive back claims he never intended for that to happen and seems downtrodden at both the attention and what appears to be his unlikely release from Alabama.
“(The situation) is very disappointing just because now that we’ve come to this point and it’s a very heated situation,” Maurice Smith said to AL.com. “There’s a lot of adversity that’s been thrown at me, the university, coach Saban, and it’s really making it something that it’s really not.
“I believe it was something that was just as simple as a transfer. But now it’s kind of transpired into something far greater, and a lot of bad things have been coming out of this. It’s just very disappointing because I never meant to hurt anyone. … I just feel like I’ve earned the right to better myself my last year and go into this season without any doubts.”
A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Michael Wayne Bratton oversees the news coverage for Saturday Down South. Michael previously worked for FOX Sports and NFL.com
